


A Night Out Under the Stars

by red_at_three (elle_stone)



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Camping, Ficlet, Gen, Shore Leave
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-16
Updated: 2016-10-16
Packaged: 2018-08-22 18:31:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8295796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elle_stone/pseuds/red_at_three
Summary: Kirk insists that his friends go camping with him. Bones struggles with the tents.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for superplyushka on tumblr for the prompt: "Never mind, the moment's gone."

“You do know that this planet has hotels, right?” Bones grumbles, as the tent he’s trying to set up falls down for the third time in a row. He stares down at the collapsed mess of fabric with a hard scowl. “Hotels with ready-made beds and ready-made roofs?”

Jim, unfazed as he glances over his shoulder, then returns to unrolling his sleeping bag, just flashes him a smile. “Come on, Bones, haven’t you ever spent a night out under the stars? Breathing fresh air, listening to those forest night sounds? It’s really something.”

Bones just rolls his eyes and mutters, “Something,” low under his breath.

“You’re obviously skeptical.” Jim crawls briefly into his tent, arranges his sleeping bag, then slides backwards out again and to his feet. “I hear it in your voice. But this is going to be fun. Also, you’re the one who required I take a shore leave in the first place so going camping with me now is the least you can do.”

“Shore leave isn’t exactly a hardship, Jim. Or it’s not supposed to be anyway. And convincing you to come down was a two-person job,” he adds, as Spock stumbles through the tree line and into the clearing, weighted down with enough firewood to topple the average human sideways. He dumps it in a pile outside Jim’s tent, then dusts off his hands, an expression of mild distaste, perhaps discomfort, on his face. “Speak of the devil—”

“If that is a derogatory reference—”

“It’s an expression. But if the ears fit—”

“Hey. Ceasefire.” Jim holds out his hands, palm out, one in Spock’s direction and one in McCoy’s, and stares at each in turn as if they were disobedient, squabbling children. He feels silly, but it stops the bickering effectively enough. “This planet is beautiful, the weather is perfect, we have everything we need for an ideal camping trip—and we’ve been working hard these last months and we deserve this break. So stop being so grumpy, both of you. This is going to be fun.”

“I am incapable of grumpiness,” Spock answers. (Bones rolls his eyes as he gets back to fighting with his tent—but Jim’s back is to him, and he doesn’t notice.) “Also, I was under the impression that you did not think you needed a break, Captain.”

“I _don’t_ need one. But that doesn’t mean I don’t deserve one. Here,” he hops easily, and unnecessarily, over the pile of wood and to McCoy’s tent, “I got this. You two build up that fire.”

Jim knows well enough that he’s the cheeriest of the three at the prospect of spending the night sleeping on the ground, but he’s not bothered. He’d only agreed to come ashore when his friend agreed to let him pick their leave activity, and as soon as he saw the planet, he knew just what he’d choose. He hasn’t gone camping in almost twenty years. But some of his best, and his most purely good and untainted, childhood memories are of overnight expeditions with Sam, when he was just a kid, and the smell of the dirt and trees, the feel of the ground beneath his feet, the sight of the tents and the firewood, all bring back those old sensations as surely as any time machine could do.

“How did you do that so fast?”

McCoy’s voice, much closer behind him than he’d anticipated, makes him jump, but he’s smiling easily by the time he turns. “It’s not that complicated. I haven’t done it in a while but it all comes back.” He nods at the neat, but decidedly still disassembled, tent sitting to the other side of his own and adds, “I’ll explain it and you can set up Spock’s. How’s that fire going?”

The fire, as it turns out, is far from perfect, but passable, a decent blaze to get them through the night. Jim and Spock figure out dinner arrangements, while Bones, slightly annoyed but too stubborn to give up, fumbles with the third tent, and by the end of the hour they have three decent places to sleep standing (or mostly standing, in one case leaning slightly precariously) and ready. Jim walks around Spock’s tent slowly, and can’t help but feel rather proud.

“You know,” he says, circling back around to his friends, looking first at Spock, who’s standing slightly less stiffly now, then to Bones, who’s beginning to actually look pleased—“You know, I wasn’t going to say anything. But I really am glad you both agreed to go camping with me. I used to really love this sort of thing when I was a kid and being out here with you two now, well—I guess I’m not too good at this impromptu speech thing yet but—I’m trying to say that I see you both as my family. I l—”

He doesn’t exactly _mean_ to say it, hadn’t started speaking with any idea of expressing this particular sentiment. The word just comes to him, it feels right, but before it’s even out of his mouth, he is interrupted by a gentle _thwump_ sound, fabric sliding against fabric as the tent behind him folds down around itself and falls, unceremoniously, slowly, as if deflating, to the ground. All three turn at once to look at it. McCoy’s expression is of quiet, building, irritation. Jim just looks surprised. And Spock, if anything, seems amused.

“You were saying something, Captain?” he asks.

“Oh. Yeah.” Jim turns back again, flicks his eyes to Bones and then to Spock. “That. Yeah—never mind, the moment’s gone.” He breaks into a grin, and slaps each on the shoulder at the same time. “So who wants s’mores?”


End file.
